ED attaches hawala dealer’s 5 properties worth Rs 21 crore

NEW DELHI: In a case against hawala dealer Naresh Jain, known to have operated 450 companies in India and more than 100 abroad with transactions of at least Rs 1 lakh crore, the Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday attached five properties located at Indore (MP), Greater Noida (UP), Solan (HP) and Gandhi Nagar (Gujarat) worth more than Rs 21 crore.
Jain was based in Dubai before his arrest here a few years ago and had allegedly co-owned a bank in Cook Islands with a family from Mumbai to launder thousands of crores. The ED investigation is based on a 2018 FIR of the Economic Offence Wing of the Delhi Police, though the accused had several cases registered and investigated by multiple agencies, including the DRI (Directorate of Revenue Intelligence) and the CBI.
He was earlier probed by the DRI in an alleged illegal export of pulses in 2007 despite a ban imposed by the government then. The probe had then also revealed links of companies associating him with the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.
“Investigation revealed that Naresh Jain and others conducted international hawala operations, providing accommodation entries to co-conspirators i.e. the beneficiaries in lieu of his commission,” the agency has said, adding that Jain had established several shell entities, 450 in India an d 104 foreign entities.
The agency had earlier accused Jain of having received more than Rs 500 crore as commission for transactions worth around Rs 1 lakh crore, providing entries to various entities. Entries are generally referred to accepting cash, depositing it in the accounts of a shell company and circulating it in multiple such firms before issuing a cheque to a beneficiary company as loan.
“These shell companies were used to open and operate bank accounts for facilitating bogus invoices for import and export transactions, providing desired accommodation entries to known and unknown beneficiaries by rotating and layering of funds,” the ED has said. These laundering of black money through a web of shell companies caused undue benefit to the parties and loss to the exchequer and banks in lieu of commission. Further investigation is on.